Adam Martinez
History 1500
Prof. Blake
Air and Blood:
An Analysis of A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
“Calamitous” is apt to describe the years that form the subject of Barbara Tuchman’s
historical narrative A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. Tuchman, a two-time
Pulitzer prize-winning author and historian, describes, using a wealth of first-hand accounts, the
events of the 1300’s and their impact on later history. The book was published in New York,
1978, making it in and of itself a secondary source. However, the immense quantity of primary
source material lends A Distant Mirror to more credibility than many others like it. Among the
momentous events covered in its pages, the book gives deep coverage on the social and political
effects of the Black Death—one of the most calamitous plagues in history. Indeed, while
Tuchman’s overall premise throughout the book seems to be that mankind’s nature remains
essentially the same, chapter 5 (entitled “This Is the End of the World: The Black Death)
demonstrates how the pandemic brought out the worst aspects of that nature. During the Black
Death, fear and misunderstanding of the plague’s causes fractured the social fabric of feudal
Europe, both temporarily and in the long term.
There are two overarching themes woven through the entire chapter, each with important
social and psychological implications. The first is that of science—or rather, the lack thereof.
The beginnings of the plague are said to have spawned on the trade routes from Central Asia. It
first entered Europe through Genoese trade ships docking in Sicily around 1347 AD. The sailors
aboard were sported “strange black swellings about the size of an egg or an apple in the armpits
and groin.” Other victims had “continuous fever and spitting of blood. (Tuchman, p. 92)” There
were two strains of plague at work: blood-borne bubonic plague, whose vectors were fleas and
the rats on which they lived, and pneumonic plague, which was spread through the air. Between
the two, the disease withered Europe like leaves under winter’s chill.
If nothing else, human beings fear the unknown. The plague capitalized on this, as the
medieval Europeans had no concept of germs and therefore didn’t realize the true source of the
infection. Medieval medicine remained confined to the idea of astrological influences corrupting
the air. Other inaccurate suppositions arose, including earthquakes releasing sulfuric fumes or
“foul blasts of wind” from the east (p.101). In this way, they drew close to one strain of the
plague, even if their guesses were off. Even three hundred years later, one biographer wrote that
the infection “had entered into beams of light and ‘darted death from the eyes.’” The rats and
fleas never bore close scrutiny, due to their ubiquity, and the Europeans never imagined such
normal parts of medieval life could be the instruments of their doom. At the very least, people
realized that the contagion spread from person to person. In consequence, mutual avoidance
became frighteningly commonplace. Wrote Boccaccio, “One man shunned another…kinsfolk
held aloof, brother was forsaken by brother, oftentimes husband by wife…fathers and mothers
were found to abandon their children to their fate.” Amid the biological and social destruction,
the pope’s personal physician remarked, “Charity was dead. (p.97)”
Religion took a major blow during this period as well, both in the hierarchal and
individual sense. Since complicated astrological explanations soared over the head of the
common man, God’s wrath was the favored explanation. Many endeavored to appease God, and
the Pope authorized processions as acts of mass penitence (p.103). These stopped when pope
Clement VI recognized that the gatherings were enhancing the spread of plague. Further
reinforcing the notion of divine punishment was the general condition of the middle ages in
relation to the church: “…hardly an act or thought, sexual, mercantile, or military, did not
contravene the dictates of the Church. Mere failure to fast or attend mass was a sin. The result
was an underground lake of guilt in the soul that the plague now tapped. (p.105)” Others turned a
different conclusion: the Jews had poisoned the wells. They were regarded as “Christ-killers” by
the Patriarch of Antioch and many others (p.110). Despite the pope’s condemnation of such
thinking, Jews were still dragged from their homes and into bonfires (p.109, 111). Further adding
to their plight, a sect known as flagellants appeared. Desperately attempting to appease God, they
upset the traditional authority of the Church, taking it upon themselves to atone for the sins of
their generation by whipping themselves with scourges. They frequently attacked the Jewish
quarters of towns where they appeared. So violent was the prospect that, in the city of Worms,
the Jews locked themselves in their homes and set them alight, in order that they might not suffer
death under the flagellants’ whips (p.115). Finally, as the plague began to die out in 1350, a
jubilee in Rome was announced by Pope Clement VI, with free indulgences offered to those that
could make the trip. Indulgences in general—the idea of paying money for expiation of sins—
were also instituted. This would come back to haunt them, as the money they made was matched
in lost respect (p.121) Indeed, this very point of doctrine would become a sore spot for later
protestant thinkers, and thus the foundations for schism were lain.
Ultimately, the fabric of medieval life had shifted forever due to the plague. The
destruction upset established social classes and ecclesiastical authority had been thoroughly
shaken (p.117, 122). It seems almost too incredible to believe that such change could come to
pass in the space of no more than three years, yet A Distant Mirror captures the era perfectly. As
a historian gifted in writing, Tuchman gives a vivid yet grounded view of the Black Death. The
language never waxes overly sesquipedalian (yes, that was entirely on purpose), yet it doesn’t
skimp on the depth of description. Statistics, though readily admitted by the author to be
sweeping guesses in many cases by medieval record-keepers, are well placed, and don’t choke
the main narrative. The bibliography is impressive; each page contains at least one and often
three or four citations from a primary source document. Tuchman’s writing talent and meticulous
research make the work accessible and valuable academically. It is readily digestible to all
students of history, collegiate or casual. In this respect, it is well suited to tackle the distant
horrors of the Black Death. Far removed as our society is from medieval Europe, A Distant
Mirror serves as an education and an immersion in the mindset of the plague-era European, and
all the sociological and clerical challenges it faced.
Works Cited:
Tuchman, Barbara. ""This Is the End of the World": The Black Death." A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous
Fourteenth Century. New York: Ballantine, 1979. 92-125. Print.